G R E E N R I S I N G

L A U R E N J A M E S

I n a cl i m ate c at a s t ro ph e. . .I n a cl i m ate c at a s t ro ph e. . .

. . . r e s i s t a n ce i s t a k i n g ro ot. . . r e s i s t a n ce i s t a k i n g ro ot

PRAISE FOR GREEN RISING

“A terrifically bold and original take on climate fiction.”The Bookseller

“Frighteningly clever and richly imagined, Green Rising is a book that combines lush, compulsive storytelling with an urgent message, and everyone who reads

it will be stirred by its call to arms. I loved it.”Laura Wood, author of A Sky Painted

Gold and A Snowfall of Silver

“Green Rising is a whip-smart tale that asks big, bold questions of how we can save the planet, with or without Greenfinger magic. Beautiful imagery, a strong scientific underpinning and well-rounded

characters. A must-read for teens today.”Laura Lam, Sunday Times bestselling author

of Goldilocks and Seven Devils

PRAISE FOR LAUREN JAMES

“Lauren James is a genius.”SFX Magazine

“Lauren James isn’t just headed for the stars – she’s already there.”

Samantha Shannon, author of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“Lauren James never fails to produce a page-turning, exciting and flawlessly crafted novel.” Lucy Powrie, author of The Paper and Hearts Society

Other books by Lauren James

The Next Together

The Last Beginning

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe

The Quiet at the End of the World

The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker

L A U R E N J A M E S

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if

real, used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are

included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.

First published in Great Britain 2021 by Walker Books Ltd 87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Text © 2021 Lauren James Cover design © 2021 Walker Books Ltd

Cover design by Beci Kelly Industrial landscape © Nataliia Darmoroz / Alamy Stock Vector

The right of Lauren James to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This book has been typeset in Fairfield, Arial, Ubuntu, Verdana

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any

form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior

written permission from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978- 1- 4063- 8467-3

www.walker.co.uk

For everyone who is angry, and everyone who is scared. Hope isn’t lost.

I incite this meeting to rebellion.

Emmeline Pankhurst

7

Prologue

There weren’t many of them at fi rst. Just a few students

standing outside the conference centre. Gabrielle lingered

on the outskirts, trying not to give off the aura of someone

skipping school. A girl in a pageant ribbon embossed with

there is no planet b was painting green and blue splodges

on people’s cheeks.

The protest had seemed like a good idea when Gabrielle

had read about it online. A climate forum thread had

suggested people protest the annual Fuel Summit taking

place inside the exhibition hall.

The people who were contributing most to climate change

were there, as the biggest energy companies in the world

made deals to drill for more oil and open more power plants.

But the crowd was just lingering around the car park, so none

of the executives inside could even see them. It seemed such

a waste, after coming all this way.

Gabrielle had to do something. She slipped away as a boy

shouted into a megaphone, “Hello, Climate Rebellion! Let

me hear you repeat after me: Climate change is not a lie, do

8

not let our planet die!” He’d draped a sheet over his shoulders

like a cape, hand-painted with the words save our future in

messy strokes.

Heading around the rear of the building, Gabrielle hid her

cardboard sign behind an overflowing waste bin. She tucked

her school tie into her pocket, so that her uniform looked

vaguely like a business suit.

She lingered around the staff entrance, pretending to send

a text. Faint shouts of, “No more coal, no more oil! Keep our

carbon in the soil!” drifted over from the car park.

When a harried-looking employee unlocked the door with

their key card, she slipped in after them. Head down, she

moved along the corridor, adrenaline surging up her spine.

As soon as she was alone in the network of corridors, she

smashed a fire alarm with her elbow.

A piercing alarm echoed down the empty hall. She

followed the stream of staff out of the conference centre,

where they joined up with the river of conference attendees.

Hiding a grin, Gabrielle retrieved her sign from behind

the bins and joined the group of protestors.

“This world is not for sale, your pipeline plans will

fail!” she chanted at the annoyed crowd of evacuated oil

executives.

Even though this protest was only small, they had to

make their voices heard whenever they could. The climate

emergency was huge – an impossible crisis almost beyond

solving. But if enough people, in enough cities, in enough

9

countries, spoke up, then maybe someone would listen. Their

voices were all they had right now. Most of the students here

were too young to vote or make any real political difference.

“We will choose, we will decide, we will fight to turn the

tide!” she shouted, adjusting her grip on her sign. Pins and

needles tickled her fingertips.

Gabrielle had been six when she’d found out that the

carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels were raising

global temperatures. She’d assumed that the grown-ups were

dealing with it, back then. But even when wildfires burned up

entire continents and hurricanes tore up coastlines, no one

seemed to be doing anything. Her planet needed Gabrielle’s

voice, because even though it was crying out for help, nobody

was listening.

“There is no Planet A,” she mumbled, too late to correct

herself. Her fingers were really aching from holding up the

sign now. She kept losing track of the words. It was supposed

to be “Planet B”.

She swapped the hand holding the banner, rubbing her

palm flat against her trousers. There was a throbbing pain as

blood rushed back into her lowered arm. Her fingernails were

pulsing, fire-hot blood beating below the skin in time with her

racing heart.

“Stop denying that the Earth is dying.”

There was something underneath her nail. Something

green, twisting like it was trying to get free. Her fingernail felt

like it was going to come loose.

10

The chant changed to, “Say it loud, say it clear, polar bears

are dying here!” as the green thing – insect? parasite? – writhed

beneath her nail. It curled upwards, like it was searching for

the light.

Gabrielle’s panic was replaced by fascination as the tendril

thickened into a flat surface. A leaf.

“When the air we breathe is under attack, what do we do?

FIGHT BACK! What do we do? FIGHT BACK!”

The stem moved faster, growing more leaves over her palm.

Another strand burst from her thumbnail, and another, until

vines covered her arm in a green, seething mass of vegetation.

It didn’t hurt, not physically. She should be terrified, but

somehow it felt – good, like a release of pent-up tension. The

vines grew stronger, stems thickening and sprouting strong,

glossy leaves. They engulfed her banner, reaching up towards

the sky.

There were exclamations of alarm as the vines wove

through her hair. Someone started filming her, as if the

plant was some kind of art piece that Gabrielle had created

especially for the protest.

This was true and right and inevitable. This was what

her hands were meant for. How had she not noticed that she

could do this before? She was absolutely certain this was

a good thing, not a danger at all. A gift.

The other protestors circled her, shouting questions she

couldn’t answer. Even the fuel executives drifted closer to

stare at her.

Gabrielle swayed in the centre of the pulsating layer of

green leaves, peacefully lost in a glowing haze of endorphins.

Her sign remained valiantly upright under the weight of

the plants. Its carefully painted message was still visible:

it’s time for a change. what you see is what you get –

and you ain’t seen nothing yet.

She was calm. She was ready. The temperature was rising,

but so were they.

12

Chapter 1

Theo was lugging a crate of iced haddock across the boat’s

deck when a deafening alarm cut through the wind. He

stumbled, fi sh fl ying everywhere as he sprinted towards the

bridge.

This was exactly why he hated helping his dad out on

the weekends. Not the crashing waves, rocking boat or

getting up at sparrow’s fart in the morning, but the constant

threat of the ocean.

Theo swallowed back dizziness as the deck rolled beneath

him. He fi xed his gaze on the oil rig looming on the horizon,

its metal crane crouched over the water like an unnatural,

ghastly insect.

Theo’s family had been fi shing for generations – his dad,

his grandad, and his dad, all the way back as far as they

knew – but there wasn’t much money in it these days. Good

hauls were rare everywhere now, but since Dalex Energy had

arrived, it had got much worse.

The energy company had built a new oil drilling rig right

in the middle of the North Sea where Theo’s dad normally

13

fished. The hulking orange platform dumped bilge water

into the ocean as they processed oil, covering the seabed in

chemicals and dirty sediment. The shoals were moving to

different waters.

“What’s going on?” Theo yelled at Dad, just as the deck

shook with a dull scraping sound. He fell to his knees, chin

banging on the sharp edge of the desk.

A second alarm was sounding now, harsh and discordant

on top of the first. Theo’s heart tripped over itself. This wasn’t

a minor issue. This was real.

Scanning readouts, Dad said, “We’ve hit something!

Bloody Dalex must not have marked a wellhead platform.”

Theo wiped slick blood from his mouth as the boat shook

around them. Dalex were supposed to put buoy markers in

the water and send the coastguards the coordinates of their

underwater structures. If they’d missed one, the boat’s early

warning radar would have only picked up on the structure

seconds before the collision.

On the screen, a bright-red warning was flashing: bilge

flood detected.

“We’re taking on water!” Dad yelled. “Lifejackets,

everyone! Get the pumps!”

The deckhands rushed into action. They uncoiled the

tubes of the bilge pumps, trying to slow the flood of water

pouring into the boat through the damaged hull.

As Dad steered the boat away from the underwater

structure, Theo’s emergency training finally kicked into

14

action. He radioed the coastguard and gave their coordinates

over the roar of the pumps’ engines.

“Good lad,” Dad called, turning on the emergency radio

beacon. “Inflate the life raft? It’s going to be close.”

Theo nodded. A calmness had washed over him. This

was unreal. He’d been having nightmares about Dad’s boat

sinking since he was a child. But he hadn’t imagined being on

board when it happened.

The floodwater was pouring over the concrete ballast lining

the fish hold now. Their pumps weren’t going to be enough.

Two deckhands were already using the power block to lift

the life raft down from the wheelhouse roof to the poop deck.

Theo helped them to inflate it, his eyes going blurry. How

could he be sweating? It was freezing out here.

Most of the time, Theo felt like the useless skipper’s

son who mistook plaice for haddock, only worked on the

weekends and couldn’t handle the early starts. But Dad didn’t

have to pay another deckhand when Theo helped out. That

was something, at least.

“Time to leave,” Dad said grimly as the boat tilted steeply,

heeling in the swell. “It’s no good.”

Theo desperately wanted to call his mum. But even if

he could get a signal, what good would it do to tell her what

was happening now? They were too far away. She would

just panic.

Instead he helped Dad climb onto the raft. The boat was

almost too small for all the men in their bulky lifejackets.

15

Dad perched on the edge, holding tight to the roping as they

untethered the raft from the sinking ship.

Theo tried to make himself smaller, feeling young and

useless and lost as the men guided the raft away from the

boat. They were ten metres away when it finally sank below

the waves.

“We didn’t lose anyone, lads,” Dad said, a resigned note in

his voice. “That’s all that matters. And this is what insurance

is for.”

Theo could hear the tremble hidden inside those words.

He shivered, wriggling on the narrow wooden bench. The

wind was scorching cold.

He glared at the looming Dalex rig. Why couldn’t they

mark their structures properly? They were already destroying

the sea, and now they’d taken Dad’s boat too.

The coastguards radioed with an update, saying they were

fifteen minutes away. The crew sat in silence, teeth chattering

audibly, until one of the deckhands turned the radio on.

“Are you hoping they’ll mention us, Reg? The coastguards

aren’t even here yet.”

“Eh, you never know.”

Theo could barely focus on the words through his

white-hot panic. Dad tapped Theo’s boot with his toes

reassuringly.

On the radio, the news presenter was saying, “Warren

Space unveiled their latest plans for Mars in a conference

this morning. The company is opening up advance orders for

16

purchase of real estate in the settlement, though residencies

won’t be built for several more decades.”

The red light of the sunken boat flickered into darkness

below the water. What did this all mean for Dad? They

barely had enough money to pay the bills normally. Even if

the insurance covered the cost of the boat, they’d still lost

a day’s haul.

Theo was probably too young to be worried about

mortgages, but he thought about bills constantly. If his

parents could only hold on for another year, then Theo could

lend them his student loan payment when he went to uni.

He’d been planning it for ages. But this was too soon. He

couldn’t help them yet.

The deckhands were chatting about the news now, voices

forcefully bright and cheerful. “Would you go, though? Just

give up your whole life on Earth?”

Theo tried to think of a pun about Mars as Dad said, “As

if any of us would ever get the chance to go there! It’ll be pure

billionaires for the first hundred-odd years.”

“They’ll need manual workers, though, Jeff. Someone’s got

to build all these fancy new houses in the colony.”

“Yeah, the maths lads won’t be faffing about digging

foundations, will they?”

The waves were getting bigger now, smashing over them as

the sky split with a booming crack of thunder.

“I’d rather buy one of those new-fangled yacht-bungalows

that move with the rising sea levels,” someone said dreamily.

17

“You probably need a Mars-ters degree to even apply,”

Theo blurted out.

They all stared at him.

“To go to Mars,” he explained.

There was a pause, and then another huge wave rolled

over the raft. Theo swallowed a mouthful of salt water, white

froth splashing his eyes. Dad was shouting something into

the wind, scrambling for purchase on the edge of the life raft.

Knife-sharp fear tore into Theo’s chest. He flung himself

forward, reaching for Dad’s outstretched arm. Another

wave flooded the raft. When the water drained away, Dad

was gone.

A scream rose up Theo’s throat. He searched the dark

ocean for any sign of movement. “DAD!”

A pale hand briefly cupped the crest of a wave, then

disappeared again.

Theo threw himself towards the edge of the raft, not

knowing what he was going to do but needing to stop this.

There was a feeling like pins and needles under his skin.

Something shot from his palm – a slippery dark-green tendril

that coiled into a tangled cord. The frilled rope sank into the

water after Dad.

The tendril curling from his palm looked like … seaweed?

Was that possible? He’d seen that girl on the news who’d

grown plants at a climate protest, but he’d dismissed it as

a scam. Some kind of trick to try and go viral. But this was

really happening.

An enormous pressure pulled against the strands of

seaweed. Theo heaved it in, barely able to hope.

Dad broke the surface of the water, coughing as he fought

to breathe. The seaweed was twisted around his chest,

holding him tight. The deckhands tugged him onto the life

raft as he choked on sea water.

“Dad?” Theo cried, desperately peeling away the strands of

seaweed suctioned onto his father’s chest. “Are you all right?”

“Theodore? How did you do that?”

This couldn’t be real. The girl from the viral video had been

pretending. She’d hidden vines up her sleeves. Hadn’t she?

Something was writhing under his jumper. Theo shivered,

ice-cold to the bone. Slick strands of kelp trailed down his

chest. The plants were still growing.

An RAF helicopter circled, a bright search beam passing

overhead. But Theo just stared and stared. It was real. It was

actually real.

PUBLIC SAFETY NOTICE All parents and guardians must report any new cases of plant growth to the government by filling out this form. Latest reports indicate that 3% of all young people aged 12–20 are displaying some degree of ability to grow flora. The oldest case is a 20 year old in Cambodia, and the youngest is a Russian nine year old.

All young people with the condition need to be monitored extremely closely for their own protection. The following protocol has been developed in response to several cases of suffocation due to a large mass of vegetation collecting in small rooms.

While it is important not to panic, all parents must be aware of the potential for danger.

• Do not close inward-opening doors, such as in bedrooms or bathrooms

• Keep a hammer or heavy object near to windows in case an emergency exit is needed

• Avoid car journeys on motorways without regular laybys

Investigation has found that the plants themselves are not dangerous and can be cut from the skin without damage to the young person. Do not be alarmed if the plants continue to grow after removal. Standard health and safety measures should be undertaken when handling unknown plant species.

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